The books they talked about...

Activists get together at Cooper Union.

On October 26, 2005 I helped cover Morley Safer, Philip Gourevitch, Mark Danner and John Freidman when they came together at Cooper Union in Manhattan to talk about Freidman’s book, The Secret Histories: Hidden Truths that Challenged the Past and Changed the World.

Morley Safer is of course a longtime CBS 60 Minutes investigative correspondent and activist. Philip Gourevitch is an award-winning author (with filmmaker Errol Morris) of Standard Operating Procedure (a comprehensive story about Abu Ghraib) and We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families.

Mark Danner is the author of, The Secret Way to War: The Downing Street Memo and the Iraq Wars Buried History, and John Friedman is also a filmmaker.

While Harry Belafonte is a legendary entertainer and social activist, Walter Mosley is leading social commentator and author of over 30 critically acclaimed books, including the major bestselling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins.

On February 17, 2006, they had a conversation about politics and Mosley's latest book, Life out Of Context: Which Includes a Proposal for the Non-violent Takeover of the House of Representatives. It was sponsored by The Nation Institute and held in the Great Hall.

Signed by Martin Kaiser, a former U.S. Government spy and espionage expert.

Two talks at the main Brooklyn Public Library.

I covered Harry Bruinius on April 2, 2006 at a talk about his book, Better For All the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and Americas Quest for Racial Purity. It is a lesser-known part of U.S. history.

Before the presentation, I got him to sign three times for me. (Two are shown.)

Harry Bruinius' website is brown-bear.com.

Martin Kaiser is a former U.S. Government spy and espionage expert who shares a very personal story in his book, Odyssey of an Eavesdropper: My Life in Electronic Countermeasures and My Battle Against the FBI. Check out the fliers he signed announcing his appearance.

He is a seemingly nice man who despises how the FBI treated him.

Before his talk, Kaiser showed me some of the surveillance items he created for the FBI. His website is martykaiser.com.

His classroom presentation...

Hampton Sides visits Columbia University.

I helped cover narrative historian and journalist Hampton Sides on October 11, 2006 at a talk about his book, Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West.

Because his book talk was to take place in a college classroom and I felt there would be no program, I brought two printouts of the cover of the book for him to sign.

A producer from C-SPAN in Washington D.C. came to our video setup in the Book TV bus, parked across campus on Broadway. Notice the photo below of me inside of it.

A week later, in the Columbia University weekly publication, The Record, I spotted an article about Sides' talk and the Book TV bus visit (also shown).

Shown above is the autograph of William Hogeland

Me with Hogeland

Barnet Schecter signed for me twice.

More historians present in New York City.

I met William Hogeland on April 11, 2006 at a talk about his book, The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged Americas Newfound Sovereignty.

His talk that evening was sponsored by the Museum of American Finance.

Hogeland's most recent book is Declaration, a narrative history of the little-known political adventure in the weeks before America declared independence.

At the time I helped videotape them, Anne Farrow, Joel Lang and Jennifer Frank were contributors to The Hartford Courant newspaper. Their discussion about their book, Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery, took place at the New-York Historical Society, on November 1, 2005.

Two months later, on January 12, 2006, social historian Eric Foner and illustrations editor Joshua Brown also appeared at the New-York Historical Society to dicuss their book, Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction.

Foner is also a renowned commentator, and professor of History at Columbia University and known for his Give Me Liberty texts.

I met Barnet Schecter on January 19, 2006 at a talk about his book, The Devils Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America. It took place in the very nice and all wood library of the Brooklyn Historical (see the video).

Schecter is from Brooklyn, where I learned he recently spoke about his latest book, George Washington's America: A Biography Through His Maps.